The facts of violations of international law must be studied by historians and should not be forgotten, says Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

MOSCOW, 10 March. /TASS/. Western partners should pay equal attention not only to the Crimea issue, but also to bombardments of Yugoslavia, Kosovo’s situation and Libya's collapse, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.

"As for the international law and the attention it attracts lately, primarily in connection with Crimea, we wish our Western partners were no less zealous in other cases which have happened recently in the modern history," Lavrov said.

"These include bombardments by members of the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] of another OSCE member, I mean Yugoslavia, and the situation with Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence without any referendum… alongside aggression against Iraq under blatantly false pretences, and abuse of the United Nations Security Council mandate in Libya," he said, noting that the whole state had been destroyed, and the only question now is how to prevent the collapse of other countries in the region.

"All these facts should probably be studied by historians, while we should pursue real and practical policy," Lavrov added. "But we will fail to achieve any results in this practical policy if we forget why certain events occurred in the international arena, crudely violating the international law. This should be remembered."